The Story of Korihor is very interesting to me (Alma Chapter 30) because I think of all the arguments presented against the pursuit of the religious in this day, the arguments of Korihor, the anti-Christ, come to be the most popular. Korihor, who sported a Jaredite name (an interesting detail in and of itself), is an atheist (a very popular religion in this age). He claimed that God was something made up, that the feelings of joy and peace, the "spirit" was "the effects of a frenzied mind". Unfortunately today, the atheists that come among us are more or less always there, constantly bombarding us with their cynical view that the belief in God is a childish, superstition. Obnoxious missionaries of some god of the void, they love to throw up geological evidences that Bible thumpers didn't take into consideration as proof positive that they might be able to dismiss all religious thought as false. I suppose, as with Korihor, it starts with part truths, and just enough unprovable assertions to make a good mix of doubt. And because there is doubt, folks believe they can justify their most perverse desires as permissible.

Why is it that we listen to the Korihors of the world? Why is it that because one person claims some completely evil notion as permissible, do people suddenly abandon their consciences and what they know to be right and sensible and follow thereafter. Sure we all have appetites which try us and push us to desire to do naughty things, but how are they suddenly permissible just because someone says they are?

It is a strange notion. A strange sense of faith, that we place our faith in some false prophet who says, "Do what you feel like doing, you feel it, it's natural, thus do it." And how quickly we jump on that. If it is shown to us enough, we embrace it as normal. We call black white and white black, good evil and evil good. We demand a sign in order to believe in God, but have no sign that following after our carnal appetites will bring us anything other than misery and regret, with passing pleasure as the only possible enticement.

And yet Korihor's fate is about the same as all who seek the world over God. Korihor is striken dumb by the power of God, and because he can no longer con folks out of their money, he is left to beg door to door for survival. (Heaven forbid he do work for a living, but apparently the inability to speak has also affected his physical strength.) And in the end, Korihor is trampled to death by a group of dissenters from the Nephites known as Zoramites, those who built the Rameumptom.

Perhaps this is where Korihor got his start? Among the Zoramites, their religion had become corrupt, and the gist of their religion was election. The notion that they were saved while all the world was going to burn in hell. I can imagine that Korihor, if he had grown up with this bunch that he might have been sickened by the religious folk of his day. But the people of Ammon, the people of Gideon were true-believers, who took Korihor and cast him out.

Personally I also think that it would be cool to be able to condemn people with the power of God to be dumb. Or like Moses, call down curses upon the wicked. Somehow, though I think I'd be a bit like Jonah, in that I'd be disappointed when the Lord chose not to smite them in my timeframe. This thing of punishment of the wicked, is one of those things that has always kind of made me think. There's an interesting scripture in Malachi chapter 3 verse 15 that states,

"And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered."

I think this scripture pretty much sums up this generation. We see folks abandoning sense, tradition, family and all that is right and good. They throw away their consciences for a Playstation 2 and a copy of Grand Theft Auto 2, and know it's wrong but it's just too darn fun to give up. And because they aren't immediately punished, and may even gain noteriety and friends who likewise want to come over to their house and play said video game, they prosper in what they know to be wrong. And believers watch and think, gee, why didn't God smite them? Heh. It's #sin# envy. The one watching the other sin and thinking, Gee, I wish I could sin like them, but I'm trying to be good. We don't do it, but we do it in our hearts.

And yet the evidence of God is all around us. As Alma states to Korihor, everything testifies that there is a God. The very order of the universe is no accident, it is a gloriously ordered event, that out of all this chaos, on the edge of it all is this grand miracle, upon miracle, upon miracle. Founded for a purpose, our world is great and good and the blessings of God are ample to those who look to Him. And when that Playstation 2 is just another Atari game of Pong, and kids have moved on to the next compulsion, will all the hours that such and such spent on being the best computer thug have paid anything in the long run? Nah... like Korihor it will be trampled down by the next hot-rod chariot, left to its own.

--Ray